Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines are the documented rules for using a brand identity, with examples of the brand applied.
Area
Brand strategy and identity
What it means in practice
Guidelines range from a short PDF to a full website or Figma library. A useful set covers:
the logo system and how to use it
color, with exact values
typography and hierarchy
graphic elements and imagery direction
voice and tone
real examples on the surfaces the team uses most, such as website sections, slides, social posts and product screens
Write them for the people who’ll use them. A designer needs exact specs. A marketer writing a LinkedIn post needs a few clear dos and don’ts. A founder making slides needs templates. Guidelines that only make sense to whoever wrote them get ignored.
They also need an owner. Brands change as companies grow, and guidelines nobody updates drift away from what the team ships.
Why it matters for B2B and AI teams
B2B and AI teams grow fast, and more people make brand material every month: sales, marketing, product, recruiting and partners. Without guidelines, everyone makes their own calls and the brand slowly loses its shape.
Guidelines protect what you spent on identity work. They let a small team keep producing consistent material after the design project ends, without hiring a studio for every asset. They save time as well. When the rules and templates are settled, a launch page or a new deck needs fewer review rounds.
How we approach it
Handover is the last step of every project we run, and guidelines are how an identity survives it. We write them for the team that has to use them.
For Only Farmers, we developed identity guidelines around people applying the brand without a designer, including logo, color and typography rules.
One team we worked with put it this way: “They make the identity feel genuinely usable rather than just beautiful.”
For Spektra, we built a visual identity around refraction, with guidelines that turn its distribution positioning into a repeatable system of color, type and graphics.
FAQ
Either works. A PDF is quick to share. A web page or Figma file is easier to keep current and can hold downloadable assets. Pick the format your team will actually open.
Long enough to cover the decisions people make often, short enough to read. Most growing companies need fewer pages than they expect, plus a set of good templates.
One person on the marketing or design team. Review them whenever the brand meets a new surface, such as a new product, market or channel.
Keep exploring
Related terms
Brand identity
A brand identity is the set of visual and verbal tools a company uses to present itself, plus the rules that keep them consistent.
Visual identity
Visual identity is the visible part of a brand: the logo, color, typography, graphic elements and imagery, plus the layout rules that tie them together.
Logo system
A logo system is the family of logo versions a brand uses, with rules for which version appears where.
Brand voice
Brand voice is the consistent personality in a company’s writing: the vocabulary, sentence style and attitude that make it recognizable on every channel.
Design handoff
Design handoff is the point where finished design work passes to the people who will build, run or extend it, with the files and guidance they need.
Show us what you’re working on
Book a call and walk us through what’s changing. We’ll suggest the scope that fits, or tell you if you don’t need us yet.